Little Homeschool on the Prairie: God Schooling: How God Intended Children to Learn by Julie Polanco Review

Recently, I have been reading a book by Julie Polanco called GodSchooling: How God Intended Children to Learn. I received a paperback book to read.

Julie Polanco is a homeschool mom of four children and recently graduated her oldest child. She has written for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine and other publications.

This book has 9 Chapters and is 163 pages. Each chapter is followed up by study questions from the chapter to refresh your memory and to jot down your thoughts on what you just read in the chapter. The book is based off a Christian approach of unschooling.

The book is broken up in two parts.

Part I: Dispelling Myths

Biblical Support of Natural Learning
Motivation & Excellence

Part II: Practice

Thoughts on Teaching Children Under Age Eight
Thoughts on Teaching Children Aged Eight to Twelve
Giving Teens the Wings to Fly
Spreading the Banquet
Getting Started
Some Q&A
Record Keeping and Structure

Part I goes over her approach of the Biblical aspects of her beliefs in an unschooling approach. Julie Polanco uses scriptures to support her convictions to school her children in this method. She goes on to explain her journey using a plethora of scriptures and experts on teaching children.

Part II covers a lot of different ideas to motivate kids to learn about the world around them. She breaks it up by ages giving you ideas and things that she experienced with her children. She talks about how she has to be more deliberate in an unschooling approach. That it does take planning to have your kids thrive in unschooling.

I know several families who embrace this approach in varying degrees and have done an amazing job and I know another one in who is struggling to make unschooling work for her family. With all homeschool methods out there each one of us on this journey of homeschooling are unique. No matter what your homeschooling teaching method is I truly feel that the majority of us have invested our heart and efforts into homeschooling our kids. Homeschooling is more than academics. NO matter what approach you teach your children you know your kids best and have adapted your homeschool to meet your child’s abilities and learning style.

Julie Polanco is very passionate about how she has been led in teaching her kids and I applaud her for having that much passion. She shares her heart and fears with what she has experienced. I agree with her that as homeschoolers in the early years we can have a lot of fear when teaching our kids. We are truly our own worst enemy and think if we have xyz curriculum it will solve all our problems. I am paraphrasing that in my own words because hey, I’ve been there many times in my 11 years homeschooling. That fear we can easily let the curriculum take over with good intentions for our kids sake. We have to do everything in the lesson and push on when our kids are clearly lost and feeling overwhelmed. I truly believe that most homeschoolers learn that it isn’t always necessary and adapt their needs appropriately.

I liked that she emphasis character from a Biblical perspective is more important than academics. She encourages letting our children play and explore their world. She also talks about spending time with our kids playing games, cooking together, and to have a relationship with our kids. Kudos for her as it’s not easy in an electronic world that can easily steal away our time quickly.

I really appreciated some of her tips in the chapter, “Giving Teens the Wings to Fly” she does a nice job talking about the pros and cons of college and some ideas on affording college.

First off let me say that I’m not against the unschooling approach. It’s just not the path that I feel God has led my family down. I have a son who has loved workbooks since he was 3 years old and still likes them now that he is 12. My 15 year old special needs daughter is all over with her teaching style. I adapt to my children’s needs and have watched them flourish using a curriculum.

I found this book hard to read. I really disagree with how she uses the Biblical context to support her convictions. I feel that the scriptures are misinterpreted and can easily cause more fear and be confusing. I have a hard time when someone is using the Bible to say that this way is the Biblical way to teach our children. God doesn’t tell us using other methods rather than unschooling is incorrect and causing our children to sin. There are many things I could quote where scripture and other things that mention that just make me cringe. I’m going to show you some pictures from the pages of the book and let you decide for yourself.

These pages are just a few things that I had a hard time with. The pages are several like this with both scripture references and other statements from Julie Polanco.

Throughout the book I kept thinking, “What about the mom who decides to homeschool for the first time after reading God Schooling: How God Intended Children to Learn?” What if the unschooling method doesn’t work for her? What is she going to do if she feels that other homeschool methods are ungodly? It feels like a slippery slope to promote.

I tried to read this book with an open mind but, every time I read it I found myself high-lightning parts of the book with all the things I felt had scripture used in the wrong context and not to mention other things that I felt strongly didn’t have any merit to it. I have a hard time when an author promotes that their approach is the only correct way. I can agree to disagree with someone but, this book felt very dogmatic to me.